Woods reflects on major achievement

Thursday 17 January 2008 00:06 BST

Tiger Woods hailed his dramatic US Open victory as the greatest achievement of his illustrious career after overcoming knee problems to take his 14th major title.

Playing his first tournament in nine weeks after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery two days after a second-place finish at the Masters, Woods battled the pain to score a memorable play-off victory over Rocco Mediate which went into sudden death after 18 extra holes at Torrey Pines.

"I think this is probably the best ever," Woods said. "All things considered, I don't know how I ended up in this position to be honest with you."

On top of the injury, Mediate pushed the world number one to the 91st hole of the tournament having twice had a chance to take the title himself and, at 45, become the oldest first-time winner in major history.

Woods, 32, birdied the 18th hole on Sunday and on Monday to keep his title hopes alive and rob Mediate of victory and add another major championship to an honour roll begun 11 years ago at the 1997 Masters.

"It was a long week. There was a lot of doubt, a lot of questions going into the week, and here we are 91 holes later," Woods added.

"It's either this one or my first one (which is the best). This week had a lot of doubt to it, to be honest with you. I hadn't walked 18 holes until the first round here since Augusta.

"You keep playing, you just keep going forward and there's no finish line, you just keep pushing and pushing and I did all week."

Woods also admitted he had had to overcome erratic play as he got each of the four rounds of regulation play under way.

"I had such great starts every day," he said with a laugh. "For some reason it just happened, through all that, all those ups and downs, I ended up being one-under par for 91 holes. It's been just an amazing week."